buck v1, hence vbl n bucking
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B Transitive.
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7 a also with ~ in, ~ out, ~ together, ~ up: To collect and transport (hay or straw) with a buck rake n 2. chiefly Upper MW, Rocky Mts
1890 Reveille (Rolfe IA) [21 Aug 7]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), He was bucking in hay with a green team, and while trying to back them out with the buck rake, one of the lines broke, letting him fall. 1903 Breeder’s Gaz. 44.170 SD, The bucking pole with its long teeth shoves or “bucks” the windrow up into a huge pile, which is dragged along until it will hold no more. . . In this way two men and two boys will “buck up” a large quantity of hay in a day into what is called by courtesy a stack. 1908 Republic Co. Democrat (Belleville KS) 1 July 1/5, Well these girls bucked all the hay to the stack with a span of three year old mules. 1921 Through Leaves 9.54 ceND (as of c1890), The mules were then swung around and the next pile dragged out on the opposite side of the [threshing] machine. In this way the straw was “bucked” out into long windrows. 1946 Star Valley Independent (Afton WY) 1 Aug [10]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), [Advt:] We are now dealers for the famous Freeman Two Cylinder Manure and Dirt Loader for your tractor with Buck Rake Attachment for bucking hay—Quickly lifts a 2000 lb. load 10 ft. high. 1950 WELS (What do you do to hay in the field after it has been cut?) 1 Inf, cwWI, Rake with side delivery or dump rake into winrows; buck with buck rake; load onto hay rack with loader. 1966–68 DARE (Qu. L11, What do you do to hay in the field after it’s cut?) Inf MN15, Rake it into winrows; buck it together—go down winrow till rake got full; stack it; SD8, Buck it—with a farmhand, put into cocks. 1969 O’Connor Horse & Buggy West 219 AZ, The hired man drove a buck rake. This had either three or four horses and they “bucked” or pushed a much larger and heavier rake in front of them to put into stacks the rows of hay I had raked up. 1978 Doig This House 152 MT, Somehow a crew had to be held together through the months of mowing and raking and bucking and stacking of 150 butts of hay.
b To work at lifting or carrying (something); esp, in connection with harvesting var crops, to load and unload (bales or sacks) onto or from a truck or wagon. esp West Cf buck n1 5, bucker n1 5
1881 Sun. Oregonian (Portland OR) 25 Dec [3]/3, We shall see tragedians, in five years from now, carrying the hod or bucking grain sacks for a living. 1905 U.S. Forest Serv. Bulletin 61.31, Buck. . . To bring or carry, as to buck water or wood. (Gen[eral]). 1908 Country Gentleman 73.1162/4 CA, I got a job “bucking water” at $35 a month and “found.” This consisted in carrying water in pails from a puddle to a donkey engine. 1918 Bakersfield Californian (CA) 7 Sept 2/4, There had been bad blood between the two for some time, growing out of the amount of work each did in bucking hay bales. 1943 Times–News (Twin Falls ID) 12 Aug 1/1, A rate of four cents per sack per crew was set for bucking potato sacks out of the field, the crew to include the truckdriver but not the truck. 1950 AmSp 25.87 OR, As a verb, buck means . . to carry objects, especially sacks in connection with combining wheat. . . in common use. 1967 DARE (Qu. L15, . . Putting hay into a building for storage) Inf MO18, Bucking bales. 1968 DARE Tape CA100, I went to work in the logging woods and bucked water for the . . logging donkeys. [FW:] What does bucking water mean? [Inf:] Well . . we carried it on horseback. 1976 Bakersfield Californian (CA) 23 Sept sec A 18/2, Hay bucking is a more serious event, but still fun. Each team of two members bucks (moves) 16 bales of hay from one trailer to the ground and back to the trailer. 1981 DARE File eOR (as of 1920s), A sack “bucker” or sack “buck” . . drove a team around the harvested field picking up the sacks of wheat . . which were dropped from a “chute” on the combine in batches of five. He picked up the sack and “bucked” or pushed it up to the level of the load where he deposited it. If stationary combined, the sack sewer took the sack . . sewed it, tipped it up on his knee, bucked the sack to the sack pile again. Ibid sID (as of 1960s), A friend of mine spent his summers working on a farm, where one of the most tedious but physically demanding tasks was bucking bales—“tossing” them from the truck to the barn. 2008 Iola Reg. (KS) 23 Feb 1/3, Any boy who grew up in Humboldt in the 1950s knew that if he wanted to make a little money . . he had to be adept with a hay hook. I learned its nuances early and mainly bucked bales on a wagon attached to a baler. 2014 Joplin Globe (MO) 19 June sec B 2/6, “When she said, ‘We buck a thousand bales a summer,’ I said, ‘Yeah, right,’ ” Harter said. “I used to buck hay myself. I said, ‘You drive the truck and your brothers throw the bales on’ and she said, ‘Not in my family. I throw them up there as well.’ ”
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